Friday, June 04, 2010

Teazer eau de ?

I've been working on a tea themed perfume for about two years now, building accords and tossing them, rebuilding bases, tossing those too. No focus. No solid, defined inspiration to continue. Some of the work, well, the bulk of the work, was done on paper -- in journaling and as tests by drops on strips. After all this time, I think I've got it. Well, the very bones of it, at least, the defined theme, and it is far, far from the original work. While I was toying with lapsong heaviness and jasmine green tea delicacy, I struck a balance by going right down the middle; not smoky and dark, and not light and floral, but somewhere there, in the center, with dark tea and wood notes shored and held aloft with honey, and heavy floral notes floating on spiced wings. This perfume is no where near completion, a few more trials and a test batch to a few friends for evaluation, and it's a go.

I've always wanted to make a perfume based on a local tea shop, Teazers World Tea Market. Tranquility reigns there, the scent of a hundred crops of deliciously aromatic tea with notes of fruit and honey and spice and wood and smoke fill the air. My fascination with the scent of tea began years ago, however, during the hot valley summers when mom served pitchers of dark sweet tea for dinner. That kind of tea, sweet Southern tea, reminds me of dust and loneliness, tire swings and biting red ants, constant hunger for the world, rivulets of happiness, and forbidden friends. Bitter sweet.

I find a trick with tea-based scents is to not use much tea at all in them. Which says something. Even diluted green tea absolute has too much of a bong water twang to it to use it without addition of other green mossy things, I find.

I found a nice tea at Christopher's -- no bong water smell at all. And I created a really beautiful smelling evulsion with a specialty tea -- jade supreme -- again, no bong water smell. I know what you mean, though. All the other trials before hitting on this one were definitely bong water, wet, mossy (not in a good way), stagnant water smells -- like a mosquito breeding ground. The lapsong trial was an absolute joke. Smelled like bong water that someone was putting their cigarette butts into.